The Halloween Children's Home was located in a house called Halloween, at 69 Redmyre Road, Strathfield. It was set up by a private committee and was initially planned to be opened in May 1925, but was officially opened by former Australian Prime Minister WM Hughes and his wife Dame Mary on Saturday 16 October 1926.
Halloween Children's Home had regular garden fetes to raise funds in the 1920s, and was supported by local businesses and citizens, including the grocers Messrs Matthews Thompson and Company and Mrs WK Arnott, the wife of the founder of Arnott's Biscuits, who held bridge parties in her home on Wakeford Road.
Monica Clare, an Aboriginal woman who later became an activist, was removed from her father as 'neglected' when her mother died in childbirth and made a state ward. Her Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, written by Jack Horner, records that Monica and brother were fostered to a happy foster home on the Hawkesbury, after spending time at what Horner calls 'Yasmar home for infants at Haberfield'. When Monica reached the age of 11 the siblings were separated and Monica was sent to Redmyre Road Children's Home (Halloween) to be trained in domestic service while her brother was sent to a boys' training farm. She never saw her brother again. Horner said the racial taunts of pupils and staff at Monica Clare's school made her determined to excel at study.
The house Halloween was later owned by Strathfield Council and used as the Town Clerk's residence. It was sold in 1961.
We do not currently have any records linked to this entry. If you know of any additional records, please contact us.
The Find & Connect Support Service can help people who lived in orphanages and children's institutions look for their records.
Last updated:
03 June 2021
Cite this: http://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/nsw/NE01120
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License